


Alien: Rebirth

by thenateman



Series: Alien Sequel Retcon [1]
Category: Alien, Alien Series
Genre: Body Horror, Horror, Science Fiction, Survival Horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 02:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19781458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenateman/pseuds/thenateman
Summary: 30 Years after the events of Aliens, Rebecca "Newt" Jorden is forced to deal with an infestation alone, without her adopted family and has to survive on an isolated spaceship research station where no one is trustworthy, not even herself.





	Alien: Rebirth

Humanity has always been dominated and defined by base animal desires, especially those of self-preservation and even more so by greed. Finding ways to have power and control over others, and then abusing that power is the fatal flaw of Man. It consumes the goodness of life endlessly like the most destructive of black holes – a constant that has always existed. The present day of 2209, despite all the technological advances, is a time like any other. Claims of improving life are often lies – a smokescreen to misdirect away from the true intent of accruing power. Those who own the means of altruism are not altruistic themselves, and in the case of the orbital research station, the Daedalus, we find no deviation from this normality. Even though those aboard the station strove to obtain more knowledge for the good of all humanity, powerful hands and minds continued to pave the good intentions into a pathway to hell, an unavoidable destiny hurtled toward faster than anyone could know.

The Daedalus orbited some 250 miles above Stygian-5, a blue-green planet home to a handful of colonies. Several moons in the distance reflected the light of the planet’s nearby star like so many silver and gold coins scattered on top of the black velvet of the vacuum. The station’s gunmetal hull dimly reflected the light of a billion distant stars that seemed close enough to touch, rendering the station a dark silhouette against the bright colors of the planet below. The only sign of life beyond the station were the distant lights of civilization on the dark side of Stygian-5. This far above the small pockets of civilization on the planet below, the Daedalus was alone. Isolated. In this day and age, super-corporations’ power often overtook national boundaries, so no national flag or insignia adorned the hull of the station. Instead, a bright yellow logo, the conjoined αΩ of Alpha-Omega Corp showed to the stars’ who controlled this station. Below the logo in intricate script read the words, “The Beginning and end of Making Your Life Better.”

Bright yellow-white lights dotted the sides of the medical station, tiny portholes into the lives of select few members humanity that strove to learn about the universe for the betterment of mankind. Despite the forces of destiny set in motion, this day on board the Daedalus was just like any other day. It was an ordinary day of work for the people on board, one among hundreds just alike each other. It was a day full of color, or rather, the lack thereof. It seemed to Newt, the resident psychiatrist aboard the Deadalus, that the color of the day was grey. Breakfast was made of grey porridge paired with grey water. Lunch was just as bad. As Newt collected the food for lunch, the grey rice clinked against the grey tin of the food tray. It was the same color as the grey teriyaki chicken next to it, as well as the grey rehydrated milk in her gray ceramic cup.

“Who do I gotta kill to get a decent tasting meal around here?” Joked Enos, the closest person Newt had to a best friend on the station. The two friends were polar opposites. Newt was a wiry blonde of almost forty, the stresses of age already showing with grey hair and wrinkle lines on her forehead and around her eyes. Below those indicators of chronic stress were happier ones, smile lines around her mouth showed she was just as able to be found laughing, as frustrated with her work. Enos was a plain-looking guy of thirty-one, with an average height and build and an unassuming face and scruffy hair. The odd friends were a near perfect match though, his lighthearted and down-to-earth personality was a good foil for her more serious and high-strung personality.

“The lunch lady probably” she responded to his question with a glance toward the thick matron behind the bar. Enos snorted at his friend’s response.  
“I swear she hoards all the good stuff,” she whispered, “and goddammit, I would cut my own foot off this instant if it meant I could have a hot, juicy astroburger right now”

“An astroburger? Gross! Planetary grill on Saturn is where it’s at,” he countered. Newt made a face at her friend.

“As if!” she responded.

This was par for the course for lunch. It looked gross, and Enos and Newt complained about it, wishing for the food back home. For the two friends, it was both the worst and the best part of their day; worst because the food was tasteless at best, but it was the best part because for a few minutes, the two could forget about the weight of the galaxy they both felt. Newt was the psychologist in the middle of a station-wide psych eval for the entire staff of one-hundred and fifty researchers, technicians, scientists, and ship crew. Enos was one of the researchers, in the middle of a particularly stressful series of experiments. Lunchtime was an escape from the stresses of their work. Researching the limits of reality for the benefit of humanity can take a toll on you, and sometimes you need to forget, even if it’s only for a company-mandated ninety minutes.

“Hey Enos, tell me a spooky story,” asked Newt after a few minutes pause in the banter to eat. “I’ve got a lotta shit on my mind, y’know, with having to do psychological evaluations on everyone in the station, and I need something to distract me from the stress.

“Oh Doctor Jorden, I have the perfect cure for you,” His easy grin turned absolutely devious. “So I was reading about some cosmic urban legends the other day, and I found one right up your alley.” She raised her eyebrows in doubtful interest.

“So, some time ago, ‘bout twenty years in fact” Enos began, leaning close “there was a group of scientists in a far-off installation on a harsh planetoid. They worked in secret, studying an alien life form, a parasite of Lovecraftian proportions. These scientists wanted to understand the creature, but it was not intelligent, it only lived to kill. Its blood is made of acid, so even trying to kill it resulted in destruction. It climbs walls like a spider and hides in the shadows to kill. It only understands one thing, anger. And these scientists tortured it, trying to stimulate its senses and understand how it worked. They only made it mad, mad for blood”

Newt felt as if she had been shot. Her chest was tight, and she felt the blood pumping in her temples. All of a sudden, she had a migraine. She knew what he was describing, the rumors of what happened at Hadley’s Hope had been twisted beyond recognition, the galactic game of telephone that humanity played quickly twisted the truth in rumors to something more akin to urban legends of old. Many of the details Enos’s version of the story had blurred the truth, but the part that always stayed the same were the details surrounding the creature. She was there all those decades ago, she knew what really happened. But Newt but dared not, could not, say anything. But if she told him about her experience…and word of that got out, who knows what the company could do to her, and Enos. The threat they gave was vague, but specific enough to fear the outcome. She couldn’t let that happen. All she could do was let him continue.

“But these scientists were messing with things they could not understand. Every week, they transmitted their research data back to Earth, but one day, the transmissions just stopped, no warning, just complete radio silence. For months the military tried to regain contact, to no avail. When they sent a team to find out what had happened, there was nothing there, just an empty crater where the camp had been, as if an angry, cosmic evil had simply wiped them off the planet. No one’s been back since.”

Newt snorted, “oh please, I watched that movie last week. It was the shapeshifting alien monster who killed them all, and it was set on Antarctica, on Earth, not another planet.”

“No, I promise this one’s real!” insisted Enos.

“Uh huh,” she cocked her head sarcastically “and you’re an android” replied Newt, sticking her tongue out at her friend.

“There’s just no convincing you, is there” Enos shook his head, “besides, we androids prefer the term ‘artificial persons’ ourselves,” He winked at her in sarcasm and ate a bite of gray matter the cafeteria called food, chewing loudly as if to show Newt his humanity. Newt made a face and laughed.

“Okay fine you’re human!” she finally admitted. The friends laughed at their jokes until they finished their meal, heading back to the trenches in the war against brokenness that was their work.

However, while the excitement of scary stories during lunch was just ending in galley, the excitement on The Daedalus’ bridge had just begun. Somewhere an alarm sounded its shrill cry, alerting the deck officer of the proximity alarm – Something was out there, and it was close. The proximity alarm had gotten the attention of the captain, and she needed to know who was coming, there being no resupply from the planet below scheduled for at least a couple of weeks.

Captain Annaline Jansdottir stood with her hands behind her back, looking out the bridge viewport into the black of space. Her uniform was pristine and her spine bore the erect curve of military precision. Her rich hair was pulled into a tight bun, revealing the blonde of her hair was unnatural, the color of her roots coming through. The black of her natural hair lightened into the pale blonde, and ombre that revealed a woman who appreciated her appearance. She tried to hide it through the bun and under a captain’s cap but it was apparent all the same. She rolled back and forth on her heels, feet clad in ebony leather combat boots that matched the leather of her gloves, which encased hands gripped together in a clear effort to avoid fidgeting.

This was her first command and frankly, she was quite nervous to prove herself. She was young for a captain, barely twenty-five years old. All of her officers were either older than her or the same age. She was often mistaken for someone of lower rank, which frustrated her to no end. She needed to prove to her superiors she was worthy of the command, and in her eyes, she hadn’t yet. 

“Radar Operator! What do you see?” Jansdottir barked, deepening her naturally girlish voice and adding a Queen’s English tilt to her natural South African accent to sound more commanding and ‘captainly.’

“It’s another vessel Ma’am! ID tags show it’s a salvage ship. Called the Cerberus. Blimey, this ID is old, she was commissioned 2130.” The officer grew quiet “That’s nearly an ‘undred years ago.”

“Communications! Try to hail her!” The captain turned her attention to the comms officer.

“I am Ma’am,” called the officer, “but she’s not responding. She is transmitting a message through emergency channels, but it’s not an S.O.S.”

“Well, what is it saying?” The captain had marched over to the comms station and leaned close to her subordinate, ear against the headset to hear and translate in real time.

“It seems to be repeating…Stay…Out...in-fec-ted…” The officer scribbled the message on a notepad. “Stay out. Infected. That’s all it says.”

“It doesn’t say what kind of infection?” Captain Jansdottir furrowed her brow, the thick brown lines meeting in a deep crease.

“No, Captain.”

“Thank you” Jansdottir said to the officer. She placed her gloved hand on her sharp chin, considering her next move. She’d seen enough old films to know that ignoring a warning like that would usually lead to disaster, but she reasoned that since this was reality, it was her duty to ignore traditional superstitions in the name of helping those in need, regardless of sinking feelings. It was all just superstitious nonsense to believe scary films represented reality she told herself. Besides, my duty to humanity is a responsibility to help everyone, no matter what my gut tells me. She reached for an internal communicator.

“Doctor Bavitz!” she contacted the station’s chief medical officer.

“Yes, captain?” the doctor’s deep and silky voice spilled like syrup over the room from the bridge’s speakers.  
She explained to the doctor the signals they’d received. “If there’s a problem with an infection, we can handle it, yes?”

“Captain, I’m confident whatever pathogen they have, we can deal with it ably, but I would recommend heading on board equipped with some kind of hazmat suit.”

“Good! I’ll make sure the suits are requisitioned” She sounded pleased. She pressed a couple of buttons and spoke again into the microphone. “Sergeant Daley!”

“Aye, captain?” the head security officer’s gruff voice returned moments afterward.

She explained the situation again. “Sergeant, set up a boarding party and grab the Doctor and a couple of his finest virologists to come with you. We are mounting a rescue of the crew”

“Aye, aye captain. We are on our way”


End file.
